[OT] Software patents

[James McDonald]

Condon Thomas A KPWA wrote:

>>I've always wondered what the discussion on software patents 
>>is about. 
>>Now I've found an illustrative example, recently filed by a Redmond 
>>software company (US-Patent Nr. 6,775,828).
>>Quote from
>>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HIT
>>OFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,775,828.WKU.
>>&OS=PN/6,775,828&RS=PN/6,775,828
>>
>>"Delayed uploading of user registration data
>>
>>    
>>
><SNIP>
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>
>>Ingenious!
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>
>As to originality and prior art, I consider this only an extension of the
>handshaking that goes on when two computers talk to each other.
>  
>

I think of my computer as a tool, therefore I feel I should be free to 
use that computer in any manner that I can make it be used. It's like 
saying you can have a hammer but you can't use it to drive roofing nails 
in because that method is patented by 'joes roofing'.

To put a patent on a process which clearly involves a combination of 
methods anyone else might reasonably want to use and easily come up with 
seems like a money grab.

I'm starting to think that the patent system as it applied to the realm 
of physical creation no longer applies to the digital realm.

Of course, there are many more learned men and women that have an 
interest in keeping the worlds commercial structure intact so that they 
can build their commercial empires and milk them like ticks on a brahman 
bull. So I probably am just naive and don't really know what I'm talking 
about.